11/30 - Amsterdam

Today we were going to rent a car and go to Amsterdam. Well...we still did, but just the car rental alone ended up being more of an adventure than we expected! Gardner and Tammie went to get the rental car that we had reserved online last night. My mom and I hung out with Emma and Ian while they went to get the car. Man, I thought they would never get back! I've never seen 2 kids so upset about being left with their aunt and grandma, hehe. I got them settled down with a movie, and they were finally settled by the time Tammie and Gardner got back to let us know that they weren't able to get the car yet. Wow! They hadn't taken their passports, which they apparently needed, as well as a bill or something to prove that they live in Germany (we got a deal on the car because of their residency here). We packed up and all headed back to the airport to get the car and take off to Amsterdam.
We got back to the airport and just waited. The machine went down, and we just had to wait. Come to find out, they actually upgraded our car, so we ended up with a hybrid. That was great (considering gas comes out to be about $6 a gallon here once everything is converted over)...but turning it on proved to be a challenge. They already warned us that the car wouldn't make any sound when it turned on, but Tammie also couldn't get the car in gear at all. It was...interesting. The car doesn't take a normal key, it's a big square key that you have to put in this big square hole. I'll have to take a picture before they take it back...lol. Once we got everything going...we were on our way. It took us just over 2 hours to get to Amsterdam. It was interesting to see all the old farmland all throughout Germany and the Netherlands. Also, I noticed that in The Netherlands, I saw exactly 1 advertisement along the freeway. The same one over and over again...lol. It was also interesting to see a bunch of buildings with the name "Visser" on them. Back in my chatting days, I used to talk to someone with the last name Visser, so it kinda threw me off. When we finally got into Amsterdam, the streets were very narrow, and the buildings with the apartments in them were just huge and close together. Tammie was telling us that you don't often see those places for rent or sale, either, because most people live in the same place their entire lives. Also, I swear *everyone* in the city rides their bikes, and they were all out today!

The Anne Frank house was our first stop. We were VERY lucky to get a parking spot *right* by it, as there wasn't much parking downtown at all. It was very interesting, but not quite what I expected. It was still nice to see, though. Makes me want to read the book again. We were then going to try to go on a canal cruise, but we couldn't find it. Tammie and I left our mom in the car and walked around for a bit. We ended up finding a little stand with hot dogs, hamburgers, and fries so we were able to grab lunch/dinner. Right next to out lunch/dinner stand...we had the gay and lesbian info center. Not sure what kind of info they were handing out...but I thought it was interesting that they had an entire kiosk...lol. It was and interesting city to see, and I would have liked to walk around more but it was *freezing*. We were going to look for the red light district as well, hehe, but decided to just move on to The Hauge the temple. Much better choice, hehe. We headed up there and the temple was beautiful. It was dark really early, so we weren't able to get too many good pictures, but you get what you can. It was definitely a good day trip, and we had the chance to talk a little about our plans for tomorrow.

You can see the rest of the pictures from Amsterdam here:

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v138/cocomo78/November07/Amsterdam/

I was kinda selective, so I may be adding more later :-)